The 34-year anniversary of the US Embassy takeover in Tehran drew tens of thousands to the largest anti-American rally in years. The size of the demonstration, however, belies the fact that Iranian society is deeply divided over rapprochement with the US.

Early Monday morning, large crowds formed around the former
embassy’s brick walls, which are covered front to back in
elaborate anti-American murals.

The seemingly hackneyed chant of “Death to America” was met with
the usual stage props: the Stars and Stripes trampled underfoot
alongside images of Barack Obama, banners declaring ‘The US is
the Great Satan,’ and placards depicting the United States under
the thumb of Israel.

Some protest paraphernalia was more topical and creative.
Students, for example, carried a model of a centrifuge used in
uranium enrichment. A slogan scrawled across it read: “Result
of resistance against sanctions: 18,000 active centrifuges in
Iran.”

And it is the country’s controversial nuclear program that lays
at the nexus of not only Monday’s demonstration, but internal
divisions which, more than anything else, explain the popularity
of Monday’s rally.

Walk the line

The anniversary of the 1979 siege, which saw student
activists scale the embassy compound’s foreboding walls and take
52 embassy staff hostage for 444 days, was an expression of pure
revolutionary zeal.

But revolutionary zeal often follows a line of Hegelian
dialectic, whereby things have a habit of transforming into their
opposites.

Nowadays, the iconic mural depicting the Statue of Liberty with a
death’s head mask is juxtaposed with smiling tourists in Gap
sweatshirts reveling in the photo-op.

Jason Rezaian, writing for the Washington Post depicts an equally
absurd encounter at the old embassy grounds, which is closed to
the public except in the week leading up to the November 4
commemoration.

When American tourists exploring the scene of “terrorism
and anarchy” asked whether they could see a bit more of the
grounds, guide Mohammad Reza Shoghi answered “Why not? It
belongs to you.’’

The pageantry of anti-Americanism, which often provides the
perfect foil for enemies of the Islamic Republic happy to
compartmentalize a country in 20-second world updates,
misrepresents the reality on the ground for any Westerner who
visits the country.

Its population is overwhelmingly young, urban, educated and
Internet savvy. Just suggesting that they are even superficially
out of the loop of global trends is a surefire remedy to incite
their derision, as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu recently proved.

Despite their view as being at the epicenter of human
civilization, Iranians feel painfully and unjustly isolated from
the world. Theirs is a country which in antiquity was heralded
for returning the Jewish population to Jerusalem after 70 years
of captivity in Babylon, only to be accused in modernity of
wanting to “wipe Israel off of the map".

In this context, the struggle over rapprochement with the
US is far less a matter of if, and much more an issue of
how.

On Sunday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s superlative
religious and political authority, warned hardliners in the
country not to undermine upcoming nuclear negotiations in the
West.

"No one should consider our negotiators as
compromisers," Khamenei said in a thinly veiled reference to
President Hassan Rouhani. "They have a difficult mission
and no one must weaken an official who is busy with work."

Hardliners cast aspersion towards Rouhani for his overtures
towards the United States, having been especially riled by a
brief but historic phone call between him and President Barack
Obama in September.

Upon returning to Tehran following the first direct contact
between a US and Iranian president in more than 3 decades,
Rouhani inspired a mixed reception. While the majority seemed
supportive of his reengagement with the world, dubbing him a man
of change, dozens more attempted to pelt him with eggs…and at
least one shoe.

The protest choir antiphonally baited each other, with
chants of “Long live Rouhani, man of change!” being
greeted with shouts of “Our people are awake and hate
America!”

‘Den of espionage’

Belief that America is an untrustworthy party in negotiations
runs deep in contemporary history, being echoed from the streets
to the very heart of political power.

The embassy compound itself has been christened “the Den of
Espionage,” as the top floor of its consular section was believed
to house a CIA unit tasked with spying on Iran.

Khamenei himself embraced this sentiment on Sunday while praising
the militant students for storming America’s diplomatic mission
several decades prior.

"Thirty years ago, our young people called the US Embassy a
'den of spies'... It means our young people were 30 years ahead
of their time," he said in reference to recent revelations
that the US has spied on 35 foreign leaders, including allies.

Kayhan, a conservative media outlet with a hardline bent, warned
on Saturday against trusting the United States and cited signs
that "the Americans are aiming to trick the Islamic
Republic" in the next round of nuclear negotiations in Geneva
this week.

Khamenei, however, has chosen to walk a careful balancing act
between embracing revolutionary motifs which characterize America
within the Islamic Republic’s creation narrative, while going
forward with negotiations which could loosen the West’s vicelike
grip of sanctions on the country.

This balancing act has brought forth the inherent contradictions
stemming from Iran’s precarious position. While the November 4th
protests have in fact waned in recent years, forcing authorities
to bus in students to fill out the crowds, the popularity of
Monday’s demonstration is less a sign that hardliners are
winning, than anxiety about the future.

Leading up to the anniversary, a Tehran municipal official
actually ordered the removal of some anti-American billboards
that had been erected.

One such poster depicted an Iranian negotiator sitting at a table
across from a US official who is wearing a suit jacket, but also
army fatigues and boots, with a caption that reads, "American
Honesty".

And while Khamenei has fought to bolster Rouhani and warned
hardliners against scuttling negotiations, in the same speech he
mirrored the sentiments of the posters which municipal
authorities took down.

“The Americans smile and express desire for negotiation; on
the other hand, they immediately say that all options are on the
table," he said in reference to US President Barack Obama,
who vowed in September to use all means at
his disposal, “ including military options, in terms of making
sure that we do not have nuclear weapons in Iran."

"We should not trust a smiling enemy," Khamenei warned, as
the students who gathered at his residence to hear him speak
chanted "Death to America".

Death to America! (symbolically that is)

Even the perennial “Death to America” slogan, popularized by
Ayatollah Khomeini in 1978, has come under fire.

Moderates who back President Rouhani have argued it’s time to
retire the phrase now and forever. Hardliners, meanwhile, believe
the chant is acutely apropos.

“Death to America means death to arrogance, death to violence.
Death to America is a symbol," Reuters cites former chief
nuclear negotiator ,Saeed Jalili, as telling a crowd on Monday.
"The Iranian people turned it into a symbol for seeking
freedom and seeking independence," he said.

The hardened war veteran and political hardliner warned that the
embassy takeover several decades prior had laid bare US
diplomatic missions worldwide as nothing more than “a place of
espionage and hatching plots."

“The capture of the nest of spies showed that the revolution
was on the right path."

At the crux of Iran’s internal conflict is the fear that Rouhani
will sell Iran’s self-declared “inalienable right” to uranium enrichment down the
river, merely to lift painful sanctions which they view as unjust
to begin with.

Monday’s demonstration is meant as a message to Khamenei that
opponents of the tentative thaw with the US won’t back down. But
the issue is not about embracing the “Great Satan.” The question
is, will Rouhani, who campaigned on playing the good cop to
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s bad cop, bring the Islamic Republic back
into the international fold without diminishing the country’s
hard-earned parity forged in antiquity?

Until that question is answered, he will continue to be a leader
who is heralded as a savior from one side of the street, while
pelted with eggs from the other.